It’s … The Encyclopedia of American loons! Our new and exciting series presenting a representative sample of American loons from A-Z.

Saturday, March 16, 2013

#469: Mike Bara

Mike Bara is an engineering consultant and another one of
those frenziedly confused conspiracy theorist who gleefully defends virtually
any hopelessly insane conspiracy theory he comes across, including but not limited
to the idea that the moonlanding was a hoax. He is the author of “The Choice”
and has coauthored “Dark Mission – The Secret History of NASA” with Richard Hoagland.
The “about the book” page on his website says that “Dark Mission took nearly
four years to complete and includes over 200 illustrations and NASA images,
many in full color. This 550 page book includes close to 200 footnotes and
scientific references supporting its shocking conclusions” – that is the
complete blurb, and you cannot be but convinced by the profundity of such
research. Apparently Bara has in the process also uncovered the secret nature
of evidence: a function of the number of footnotes and page numbers. Add in
some pictures, and it counts as proof
as well. You can read an interview with Bara here.

Apparently
Bara doesn’t fancy evolution either, apparently because evolutionists, as
opposed to practising Christians, have been less open-minded about his UFO and
moonlanding-related claims – and because his ancient astronaut claims seem to be in discordance with the Darwinian explanation of the fossil
record. You can read more about his ”research” at his websites LunarAnomalies.com
and DarkMission.net, but I don’t have the faintest clue why you would want to
do that.

Diagnosis:
Hysterically disassociated from reality, Bara is probably pretty harmless –
though he comes across as pretty miffed that people who are actually able to
use reason don’t really pay much heed to his claims.

6 comments:

That's reasonably accurate other than "including but not limited to the idea that the moonlanding was a hoax." Bara is NOT an Apollo-hoaxer -- in fact, he devoted a whole chapter of his appalling book "Ancient Aliens on the Moon" to pointing out the fallacies.

Also, "miffed" is putting it mildly. His main debating technique is extravagant insult, and he appears to consider insinuations of homosexuality a fine insult, too. Make of that what you will.

Apollo-hoax add: Hilariously, Mike goes along with Richard Hoagland's theory that NASA itself started the hoax rumors. He announced that a senior NASA PAO was seen accompanying a man in a greatcoat, distributing fliers denouncing Apollo in the press room, "where the press was gathered for the splashdown of Apollo 11".

That would be a superbly accurate statement, were it not for the tiny fact that this happened at JPL, which had nothing to do with Apollo. The press were not gathered for the splashdown, but for the closest approach to Mars of Mariner 6.

The PAO in question was Frank Bristow. I knew Frank -- he was a bit of a plodder, but very conscientious. If the story is true at all, it is infinitely more likely that Frank was accompanying "Greatcoat Man" to ensure that he exercised his First Amendment rights without bothering the journalists.

Update: Bara has now written five more books, all of them utter trash. In "Hidden Agenda" (2016) he grabbed an image of a landslip down the wall of a lunar crater, turned it upside down, and claimed it was evidence of crystalline structures on the Moon.